Why do such beautiful things crumble sometimes?

Tomorrow, we have a staff meeting at the high school, in which mine and Briana’s work will likely be called into question, and it may very well mean that our services are no longer wanted.

I have worked there for four years now. It has simultaneously been the hardest, most painful, most powerful, and most effective political, emotional, and personal work I have ever done in my young life. They have been four incredible years. I will not regret them if this is the end, but I don’t want this to be the end. We’ve been working with a vision and a strategy, and for it to get rolled back this year, at this point, would be a major, tragic loss.

Tomorrow we will present our views, and all of the staff members will present theirs, and we’ll see where we all are. I have no idea what to expect. There frankly have been a lot of rumors going around about divisions and factions, and that freaks me out…because in dramas like that the radicals and visionaries are usually the first to be sacrificed.

I’ll let you know what happens, but I am preparing to leave. Crying sometimes. Enraged sometimes. Most of all sad for the students. I know that I am nowhere near the kind of educator and ally they really need at that school, but at the same time I KNOW that I am good for them, that Briana is good for them. If we leave, it should be because the school is ready to move on without us, not just because our work is not wanted or understood anymore.

But that’s the problem, isn’t it? Our work was possibly never wanted or understood as it really was, but rather as an idea, easily tokenized and marketed, of “student voice” and “student empowerment” and “social justice.” But then folks start to see the substance underneath the style and they get scared. It is a story that is WAY too old. I’m sorry to have to be just another rerun of it.

In this way, it was good yesterday to re-discover my old writings, and to recognize my own radical visionary abilities again. I think I’d forgotten lately that I am a valuable thinker and worker for social justice.

Wish me luck tomorrow, and still don’t forget to check out the writings, when you have time.